Artspiration – Carve & Draw

Beautiful and Bizarre Little Things

Like small works of art, well here’s another lovely artist for this blog’s artspiration collection: Naoto Hattori.

I’ve been following Hattori for some time now and his work has always been a great reminder that amazing art can come in small sizes.

Naoto Hattori is a Japanese artist who paints these wonderfully surrealistic acrylic paintings of floating heads, imaginative creatures and adorable one-eyed kittens. Many pieces of his work are smaller than 6×6, which have often given me inspiration in doing my artist card drawings. Not so much in subject matter but rather to serve as an example that an artist doesn’t have to go out and create work that can cover one whole side of a museum in order to create great art. Such large pieces are impressive indeed but as the saying goes “Great things come in small sizes” too or my personal favorite “It’s the little things that count.” So here’s another mark on the scoreboard for lovers and creators of small works of art. 😊

A Little Kick Start

It takes a while to reach a sense of harmony with the ebb and flow of one’s own creative energy without panicking during moments of receding before it washes up on you again. In other words, since my last drawing, Red Crown, I’ve done nothing. I’ve been out of it frankly but for the first time I’m not freaking out about. I’m getting better at knowing that this is how I function and contrary to the current mojo of our times, it’s impossible to stay in a constant state of high productivity. Productivity books be damned, creativity NEEDS moments of incubation. In Nature winter calls us to these moments and I am no longer afraid to heed her call. So I’ve done nothing since my last post but watch anime and had my mind twisted by Park Chan Wook’s “The Handmaiden”. (I’m actually still recovering from that.)

Anyhoo, now that almost a week has gone by I feel myself a stirring yet needing a little boost. Viewing the work of others is one way I help myself get a kick start. So following are the works of four lovely female artists whose work I would like to share since they often inspire me. Some I’ve been keeping tabs on for a few years now and some are new comers to my personal list of inspirational artists. Their work can be described as ethereal, emotive, sensual and surreal. Matter of fact, you may even see some of their influence in my own work such as with my drawing “Maybe”. 😊

Art, A Glimpse Into My Soul

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

If there is any work of art that is a glimpse into my soul, I would have to say it is The Slav Epic by Alphonse Mucha.

Although Mucha is more notably remembered for his poster illustrations of lovely women with flowery decor and fanciful graphic lettering, as well as being one of the well known artists of the Art Nouveau movement. For me, even though I greatly admire his illustrations, which are often a source of inspiration, it is The Slav Epic that has always captivated me the most. There’s something deeply emotive about the work. And the many years it took to for Mucha create such exquisitely impressive paintings, which he considered to be his life’s masterpiece, is something to be in awe about. I hope that one day I can create something as amazing from my own cultural history.

The Slav Epic is a series of 20 huge paintings depicting the history of the Czech and the Slavic people as a celebration of Slavic history. Unfortunately with the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Mucha work was denounced and he became a target during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. He died in the summer of 1939…but thankfully his beautiful works live on.

You can see more Alphonse Mucha’s art at the Mucha Foundation website, http://www.muchafoundation.org